Many organizations provide services to members of the public via general purpose or dedicated data terminals. Financial institutions, for example, provide services via automatic Banking Machines (ABM), dedicated information kiosks, and On-Line banking from any suitable general purpose computer. In another example, airlines provide services via check-in kiosks located in airport and from any suitable general purpose computer via the Internet.
Although some of the organizations maintain databases to store information about people to whom they provide services, this information is not efficiently utilized.
For example, if a traveler is a frequent flier with two different airlines, his name and address, citizenship, passport number, and his preferences regarding seat selection, meal selection, preferred airport and preferred class need to be provided separately to each airline in order for the airline to make use of this information. The traveler may be required to provide this information to the airline by typing it at a self-serve kiosk. This is time-consuming and may be annoying to the traveler.
In another example, a driver may have rented a car from a first car rental company and informed that company of her preferences regarding car size, standard or automatic transmission, her age and her credit card number. When the driver wants to rent a car from a second car rental company, the information previously provided to the first car rental company is not available to the second car rental company from the database of the first car rental company, and the driver needs to reiterate all her preferences and personal information to the second car rental company.